GrapAL: Querying Semantic Scholar's Literature Graph

We introduce GrapAL (Graph database of Academic Literature), a versatile tool for exploring and investigating scientific literature which satisfies a variety of use cases and information needs requested by researchers. At the core of GrapAL is a Neo4j graph database with an intuitive schema and a simple query language. In this paper, we describe the basic elements of GrapAL, how to use it, and several use cases such as finding experts on a given topic for peer reviewing, discovering indirect connections between biomedical entities, and computing citation-based metrics.